When I brought up Google Reader on my screen this morning and navigated to a certain New York Times article by Tina Kelley, I was heartbroken. The article reports that due to the current economic crisis, cat and dog adoptions are down and more and more abandoned pets are coming in. An official was quotes as saying that some pet owners “can’t even afford food.” Telephone requests to New York City’s main animal shelter to help keep pets through this difficult economic phase have doubled.

“Probably because of the crisis, fewer people could make a commitment to adopt,” Richard P. Gentles, the director of administration services for the shelter, Animal Care and Control of New York City said. “It will be a huge problem for us if it continues.”

He said the agency needed to recruit three times the number of new foster homes for pets to keep up with demand, in part because many people who serve as foster petkeepers end up adopting them and leaving the program.

The article points out that donations to animal shelters have also plummeted, compounding the situation. She added that some people have taken it upon themselves to care for stray cats themselves:

“We’re hearing that individuals who are caring for feral cat populations with their own money or small rescue groups are feeding them bread soaked in water now, because there’s not enough cat food,” she said.

The article sites some touching personal stories, too: two women turning over a dog to the shelter, crying too much to talk to the author; a man turning in an abandoned cat (a litter-trained pet) that he found outside his apartment; etc.

“If I could keep him I would, but I have three at home,” said the man, Ted Sterns, the chief stage manager for Merkin Concert Hall on West 67th Street, adding that the cat was trained to use a litter box and seemed to have been a pet. “Somebody dumped this poor baby out.”

The article just briefly hinted at the fact that pets have been proven to ease psychological and emotional stress for their owners. One would think that during these financial hard times, people might need the companionship of their pets more than ever.

Read the original article here.Technorati Tags: toilet train cat, stray cat, economic crisis

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